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On this page we assemble additional material (worksheets, programms, ...) for evaluating the observations. Most of the material will be linked on the corresponding pages.

Work sheets
- comp2Mercury2019positions.xls (version 2019-10-27) for the calculation of the distance to the Sun by combining two positions of Mercury measured simultaneously at distant sites. As illustration the sheet containes one pair of (theoretically determined) positions.
- All positions measured at the same site may be copied into tableofMercury2019positions.xls (version 2018-03-12). The sheet calculates the linear fit to these positions. Saved as ".txt" format the data can be evaluated with one of the programs below.
- Sheets with theoretical position data, calculated with JPL's HORIZON's Web-Interface:
  - Geocentre(horizons).xls
  - Montreal(horizons).xls
  - Ushuaia(horizons).xls
  - Hannover(horizons).xls
  - Geocentric equatorial coordinates of the SDO satellite (version 2019-11-11). These coordinates are necessary for being able to compare Mercury's positions as observed by the SDO with those taken from earth. The sheet also contains the corresponding position angles of the solar north pole.
  - Mercury's positions with respect to the sun as observed by the SDO, calculated with the geocentric coordinates of Mercury, SDO and the sun
  - Mercury's positions with respect to the sun as observed by the SDO, measured on SDO images
  These example sheets can be used for exercising the process of evaluation as described on page Example.
(Windows-) Programs
- The exact mesurement of Mercury's positions on the Sun's disc may be done with evaltransitpicts (version 2016-05-16).
- As comp2Mercurypositions.xls the program calcparallax2019 (version 2019-01-16) calculates the Astronomical Unit by comparing two simultaneously measured positions of Mercury.
- The position angle of the sun's north pol with respect to equatorial north, as be observed from earth, can be calculated with solarPosAngle.
- With comptransitofMercury2019pos (version 2019-10-11) complete position data of two distant observers can be combined in order to get the best possible measure of the Astronomical Unit from their observations. The program may be tested with the simulated positions from Hannover and Ushuaia.
  If no suitable measures are available for this comparation theoretical geocentric data may be taken instead (see above).
- Eclipses, (Windows-) program which simulates eclipses and transits
Additional documents

Using the 2016 Transit of Mercury to Find the Distance to the Sun, The Physics Teacher 55, 137 (2017), with some comments (by U. Backhaus) concerning the theory
Die Merkurtransits 2016 und 2019 und die Astronomische Einheit, Astronomie und Raumfahrt in der Schule 56/3-4, 26 (2019) (in German)
"The transit of Mercury: November 11, 2019", American Journal of Physics 87 (10), 773 (2019)
"Measuring the Scale of the Solar System, through Transits of Mercury", PP presentation of the talk given on the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2019 in Geneva

Editor:

Udo Backhaus

last update: last update: 2020-02-07

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Transit of Mercury, November 11th, 2019

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